A museum dedicated to electricity pioneer Nikola Tesla is set to be built, after The Oatmeal website exceeded a target of raising $850,000.

Launched less than a week ago, the campaign was set up to buy Tesla's old laboratory in Shoreham, New York.

About 21,000 people have donated more than $900,000 (£570,000), with 39 days of the crowd-funding campaign to go.

The Serbian-American inventor is best known for his work on alternating current, radio, and electromagnetism.

"Wow, someone just donated $33,000 at the last minute and put us over our goal! $873,169 REACHED!" tweeted The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman, who launched the campaign on the IndieGoGo crowd-funding website.

"With the matching grant from NY State, this puts us at $1.7m raised in six days to try and buy the property. FAN-GODDAMN-TASTIC," he added in another tweet.
Saving the lab

In 1905, Tesla built a 187ft (57m) tower in the town of Shoreham.

He hoped it would be a power station that would supply the entire world with free wireless electricity, prefiguring the wi-fi, 3G and other cable-free transmissions used in modern mobile phones, computers and cars.

But some time later, the scientist lost his funding, and in 1917 the Wardenclyffe tower was demolished to pay Tesla's debts.

A photographic film company bought the land and used it for nearly 48 years.

The site has recently been put up for sale, with an asking price of $1.6m.

A non-profit organisation, Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, expressed interest, with plans to turn the old lab into a museum dedicated to the inventor.

But it had trouble raising money - and Mr Inman decided to help.

"The folks behind this project are a... non-profit organisation and they've spent the past 15 years trying to find a way to save this property," says the campaign's description on the crowd-funding site.

"This IndieGoGo account is linked directly to their bank and all the funds will go directly to them."

The non-profit group has to outbid another potential buyer "who wants to purchase the property [to] potentially tear it down or turn it into a retail establishment," Mr Inman wrote in his blog.

Inspired by maverick genius Nikola Tesla, Wil Cashen invented an electric pickup truck. Now the Los Angeles-based engineer and entrepreneur wants to pay homage to his role model by making a docudrama about the eccentric Serbian-American inventor.

Cashen’s film project Electricity: The Story and Life of Nikola Tesla, which is currently up for funding through Kickstarter, would help educate mainstream audiences about the brilliant scientist whose system for distributing free wireless electricity got squashed by established business interests led by Thomas Edison.

Writer Carol Bourgeois, who began researching Tesla 12 years ago and finally completed her final script early this year, told Wired by phone that when she interviewed people on the streets of Los Angeles, nine out of 10 drew a blank at the mention of the Tesla name.

“It’s time for him to shine,” she said, citing several incidents in which the obsessive-compulsive Tesla got cheated out of profits and patents. “This is a dude that got screwed and didn’t get a penny for any of his patents. That’s where our passion comes in.”